


you called for help, but nobody came

by AmberRunnel



Series: darker days of the dream smp [6]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Attempted Suicide, Manipulative Relationship, Pandora's Vault, Panic Attacks, Starvation, Swearing, Therapist Puffy, based off the stream from 2/22, claustrophobic tommyinnit, suicidal ideations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberRunnel/pseuds/AmberRunnel
Summary: “I don’t want to bond,” Tommy pleaded, hating how his voice cracked. “I want to go home.” He slumped down in front of the lava, staring at it until his eyes hurt. He wasn’t going to last a week, not with Dream over his shoulder. “Sam wouldn’t just leave me here.”“Well, he has."Tommy turned on Dream in an instant. “If he knew what kind of psycho you really were, I wouldn’t be here," he spat.“Oh, Sam knows what I did to you in exile,” Dream said ever so deliberately, voice soft with pity. “I told him everything. How I blew up your stuff every day, how I hit you whenever you lied to me, how I stopped you from killing yourself.” He shrugged. “I guess he values following the prison’s procedures over you, doesn't he?”Tommy stepped forward, fury blinding his vision, and punched Dream right across his mask.---Tommy spends seven days in prison with Dream.//TW: suicidal ideations, starvation, manipulation
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Sam | Awesamdude & TommyInnit
Series: darker days of the dream smp [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2039249
Comments: 23
Kudos: 364





	1. One

Tommy opened his mouth ready to yell for Sam when a distant explosion sounded from far, far above them. The cell shuddered, ever so slightly.

“What the _fuck?_ _”_ Tommy exclaimed, stepping back. “What the fuck was that?”

Dream shrugged nonchalantly from where he was leaning against the wall, but Tommy could almost hear the smile in his voice behind his mask. “Sounds like explosions.”

Another shudder ran through the cell, and Tommy clamped his hands over his ears. For the briefest second, he was back in L’Manberg again, looking up to an obsidian grid and stormy sky watching his home destroyed. 

“I’m leaving,” Tommy said defensively. “I’m done here, this is it—I’m leaving.” He faced the lava, firmly ignoring Dream behind him even as the noise from more explosions pierced the obsidian. “Sam!” he yelled. “Sam! I’m ready to leave!”

No reply.

“Sam? Sam! I’m serious, let me out of here!” 

Silence.

Tommy kept yelling.

“He’s not going to answer you,” Dream lashed out. “He’s dealing with the security breach. The prison’s in lockdown.”

“How long is it gonna fucking take him?” Tommy pleaded, knowing the answer already.

“You signed the book, and I wrote it myself—up to seven days.” 

No, no, Tommy wouldn’t last a week. He wouldn’t even last a day in this obsidian box with no one else to talk to but Dream. Dream, who’d manipulated him in exile, Dream, who’d blown up L’Manberg, Dream, who’d almost killed Tubbo right in front of him—

“No, no, I’m leaving,” Tommy decided. 

“How?” Dream insisted. “How? How are you—”

“ _Shut up!”_ Tommy yelled. “ _Shut the fuck up!_ I’m done here, I’m done with you.” He stepped right up to the lava, ignoring the heat scalding his face. “Sam! SAM!”

Silence.

“Go on,” Dream told him. “Keep yelling, keep pleading. He’s not coming.”

Tommy’s voice grew louder. “Phil! Phil! Get me out of here!”

“Tommy, there’s no way out of here,” Dream said softly, stepping closer. “You’re no less stuck in here than I am.”

“Fuck you,” Tommy spat.

“Listen,” Dream said calmly. “I’m telling you, I’ve changed. It’ll be just like old times, won’t it? Just you and me, bonding in exile, bonding in prison.”

“I don’t want to bond,” Tommy pleaded, hating how his voice cracked. “I want to go home.” He slumped down in front of the lava, staring at it until his eyes hurt. He wasn’t going to last a week, not with Dream over his shoulder. “Sam wouldn’t just leave me here.”

“Well, he has,” Dream said.

Tommy turned on him in an instant. “If he knew what kind of psycho you really were, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, Sam knows what I did to you in exile,” Dream said ever so deliberately, voice soft with pity. “I told him _everything_. How I blew up your stuff every day, how I hit you whenever you lied to me, how stopped you from killing yourself.” He shrugged. “I guess he values following the prison’s procedures over you.”

Tommy stepped forward, let his anger blind his vision, and punched Dream right across his mask.

Dream barely flinched, taking the blow without a sound. He didn’t retaliate, raising his hands as Tommy considered striking him again. Fury was curling through his stomach, and he was itching to just _hurt_ Dream for everything that he’d done to him.

“What did you do?” Tommy growled. “Why are there explosions? What did you do?”

“How would I know?” Dream pointed out. “I’ve been stuck in here the entire time!”

“No, I know you,” Tommy snapped. “This has your meddling written all over it. Why else would the explosions go off right as I’m here?”

“I don’t know!” Dream snapped. “Like I said; I’m stuck in here.”

Tommy shook his head, breathing too fast as he laced his fingers over his head. “This isn’t happening,” he muttered to himself. “This isn’t happening.”

“Look on the bright side,” Dream said. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk to each other.”

“No, we fucking won’t—”

“You can’t get out of here.”

Tommy shut his eyes tightly. “I know.”

“Make the best of it,” Dream suggested. “We’ll talk and we’ll have _fun,_ just like the old times.”

It was raining again, and Dream was standing fully armored on the obsidian grid as explosives fell below. _“You’re just too fun.”_

“Shut up,” Tommy said through gritted teeth, sitting down in front of the lava with his fingers digging into the unforgiving obsidian. The walls were pressing in around him, suffocating and shrinking and he didn’t even have the space to run and jump and fight— 

_Jump in the lava. It’s right there. Kill yourself. End it faster before everything gets cold again—_

Tommy dug his fingers into the side of his face, trying to snap himself out of it as dread tore at him. _You’re stuck, you’re stuck, you’re stuck—_

Tommy was five seconds away from hyperventilating when Dream put his hand on his shoulder. “Tommy?”

Tommy spun around and hit him again without thinking. “Don’t _fucking_ touch me,” he snarled.

“You were panicking.”

“It’s none of your fucking business.”

Dream stared at him quietly. “You can hit me again, if you want. I deserve it.”

Tommy almost did—he came so close, every part of himself straining to do it, to hurt Dream just as Dream had hurt him. It made him feel better, it made him feel in control again, and he needed the fucking distraction. Instead, he turned away and sat back down again, burying his head in his arms. 

“This is why I didn’t want to come back,” Tommy mumbled. “I don’t like who I am around you.”

Dream said nothing, and Tommy gave himself a few seconds to breathe deeply like Puffy had taught him. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhaled, and soon he was calm again. _This isn’t forever, just a few days,_ he reminded himself _. Sam always fixes things, and when he comes and gets you out of here, you can bid this psycho farewell and never come back._

This wasn’t even the denial that had kept him going in exile—all of what he was telling himself was completely true. He wasn’t stuck here forever. This was temporary, this was a short few days and he’d see the sunlight again. 

Tommy exhaled, smiling to himself. This could be his closure—seven days, and he’d never have to see Dream again. He could prove to himself he was alright again, no matter what Dream tried to do, and Dream would rot for the rest of his life while Tommy lived his life _happy._ Sam would help him finish his hotel, he’d have fun with it while it lasted, and then he’d go live with Tubbo in Snowchester where they never had to worry about being threatened again. 

Dream was sitting against the back wall, just looking at him.

“What?” Tommy asked. “Why are you staring at me?”

“It’s just...I’ve been lonely,” Dream said quietly. “You said you’d come visit me and you never did, even though I kept waiting for you.”

“I don’t owe you shit.”

“I know. I’m glad you’re here, though.”

“Shut the fuck up.” There was no anger in Tommy’s voice, only a flat, uncompromising demand. 

Dream was silent.

. . . 

Tommy passed the time by sitting still and meditating, something quite uncharacteristic of him. Puffy would be delighted to see him following her guidance, as every time she’d tried to have him sit still, he’d bombard the silence with every inappropriate joke that crossed his mind. 

Now, he made no sound. He didn’t even open his eyes to see what Dream was up to, and he didn’t care. If he had to spend the entire week sitting still and doing nothing, he would.

Several hours passed this way, neither of them making a sound. Tommy guessed it was getting dark when he realized he’d had nothing to eat or drink the entire time.

“When do we get food and water?” he asked without warning.

“There’s water in the basin. Potatoes, not until tomorrow morning.”

Tommy opened his eyes, recalling his previous visits. “Only raw potatoes?”

“Yeah.”

He studied Dream more closely, and now that he wasn’t panicking, he noticed how thin Dream was. “That’s not enough to live on.”

“It isn’t. The regeneration beacons do the rest. You’re going to have a rough first day.”

_Fuck._

Tommy wasn’t a stranger to starvation; he’d barely gotten enough to eat throughout his exile, but he remembered quite clearly how painful it’d been in the beginning. At one point, he’d stopped feeling hunger pangs, but that had been after days of very little to eat.

 _Just one week,_ he reminded himself. _Just one week, and you never have to come near this place again._

Tommy refused to cling to the hope that Sam would break protocol and give him more food, knowing it would only make him feel worse when Sam didn’t. 

“Does Sam come by to deliver food?”

“It’s automated,” Dream said flatly. “There’s a dispenser by the lectern.” 

“Which means there’s only enough for one person,” Tommy said cheerfully. “I hope you don’t mind me taking it all. I know you had something to do with this, after all.”

He couldn’t read Dream’s expression through his mask, which was quite annoying, but something occurred to Tommy: _we’re stuck in here with each other. He doesn’t have anything that gives him power over me._

This wasn’t worse than exile; this was _better,_ even if it seemed everything in this place had been designed to trigger his panic attacks. He and Dream were on even ground now—in fact, Tommy was in a better physical shape.

_Put your armor in the hole, Tommy._

_Take your mask off, Dream._

Tommy thought about it for a few hours. Maybe this was Dream making him a bad person again, but Tommy could get him to back off before he lost his advantage. There was nothing personal about armor, and there was _everything_ personal about Dream’s mask. He never took it off, and Tommy didn’t know why.

Maybe he’d ask, one of these days.

. . . 

The lights flickered off without warning, plunging them into the darkness and flickering shadows of the lava. Tommy jumped up ever so slightly, but Dream didn’t stir.

“Why are the lights off?”

“It’s nighttime.” Dream was already slumped down in the far corner of the room, eyes closed and hands still. Tommy rubbed his eyes, miffed. He didn’t fancy the idea of sleeping on the floor of obsidian, but it was either that or go sleep-deprived until he passed out. The longer he was vulnerable, the more Dream would take advantage of it. 

The bubbling of lava and steady drip of crying obsidian soothed him into closing his eyes, trying to ignore the painful way the obsidian dug into his shoulders and head. He had a headache after a while, and no amount of rustling did anything about it.

Several hours later, Dream spoke into the silence without warning: “You’re restless.”

“No shit. The fucking obsidian’s giving me a headache.”

Dream tossed something at him in the dark—his hoodie. “Sleep on this, then. You’re keeping me awake.”

“Your problem, not mine.” Tommy took it anyway and settled down, irritated with everything.

Somewhere along the way, he drifted off into a restless sleep. Nightmares stuck with him as they always did, and by the time the cell lights turned back on again, Tommy had woken up in cold sweat at least twice. 

Before, he’d always had the comfort of his home to calm him down. Waking up to darkness and hunger pangs made everything that much harder, but he had little choice. 

Dream didn’t protest when he took all the potatoes the next morning, but they did little for his hunger in the end. A few hours in the morning, he was curled into a ball in the corner of the room, eyes closed as he tried to ignore the hunger pangs.

“You haven’t had water since yesterday,” Dream told him. “You need to drink at least a little.”

“It’ll make the hunger worse. I’ll get water tomorrow.”

“Tommy.” Dream had used that warning tone so many times during exile. Even if this was the first time it held a plea in there too, Tommy gave him a look that promised a world of pain.

“Tommy, please.”

Tommy sat up, rubbing his eyes. His shoulders and back hurt like hell from sleeping, and his half-assed attempt at stretching only made him wince. “Why do you care?”

Dream shrugged. “The beacons can account for starvation, not dehydration. You won’t make it seven days without water.”

“Right,” Tommy drawled. “Wouldn’t want your only company to die, would we?”

“Tommy, please.” Dream only sounded tired, and Tommy rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

He got to his feet far too fast to get to the water basic. Black dots swam across his vision as he wavered precariously, and the next thing he knew, Dream was sitting him down on the ground after having caught him mid-fainting. He stepped away immediately, which was good for him—a second longer and Tommy might have kicked him in the shins. 

“Fucking hell,” Tommy muttered, shutting his eyes against the harsh glare of the ceiling lights. 

Dream let him sit up, and his voice was entirely non-concerned. “That’ll stop after tomorrow, don’t worry. I only passed out the first day, too.”

“What a fucking relief,” Tommy complained, getting up more carefully to get water. “What’s tomorrow? Hallucinations?”

“No,” Dream said, but there was a certain emptiness in his voice Tommy didn’t like. 

“What?” he demanded.

“Nothing that concerns you,” Dream said bitterly. “You’ll be gone anyway.”

“What, are you seeing shit in your head now?”

Dream said nothing.

“Come on,” Tommy mocked. “I wanna know. What'd ya see?”

“Fuck off.”

Tommy smiled, sitting casually beside Dream just to see him tense. “Come on. I’m your _friend,_ Dream. You can trust me.” The sarcasm laced in his voice made every intention clear, and Dream didn’t look at him.

“No?” Tommy prompted, sitting back and looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. “You know, I’ve been thinking about exile a lot. You remember when you gave me a choice between my armor and my compass?”

“Yeah,” Dream muttered, almost imperceptibly. 

“I miss that compass,” Tommy said matter-of-fact. “But you made me throw it in the lava, remember that?”

“Yeah.”

Tommy nodded slowly. “See, I’ve been thinking ‘bout that mask of yours.”

He expected anger, fear, pleading—of all things, Dream _laughed_. It wasn’t a kind laugh at all, it was the kind that made Tommy wonder if he’d pushed Dream too far.

“I thought it’d take you longer to stoop that low, honestly,” Dream admitted once he’d calmed down, and a jolt of shame shook Tommy out of his curiosity. 

“I don’t think you’re in a position to judge,” Tommy tried saying, only for Dream to shake his head.

“Maybe two months stuck in a fucking box can make someone change, have you considered that?” Dream said harshly. “I know you like assuming the worst of me because it makes you feel better about yourself, but at least let me keep _some_ dignity.”

Tommy froze.

“Go on,” Dream insisted, head tilted forward. “Take my mask, since you want to. I won’t stop you.”

Tommy shook his head, suddenly appalled with himself. “Sorry,” he mumbled under his breath.

Dream shook his head and turned away.

They sat in silence for several minutes, Tommy unsure of what to say. Eventually, he settled with, “You do see things, though?”

“Voices, sometimes.”

“Like Techno and shit.”

Dream shrugged. “Not really. I hear people, I guess, even since I lost my clock.”

“Who?”

“Everyone. Sapnap, George, Bad, you—” Dream drifted off, gaze wandering aimlessly. 

“What do we say to you?”

Dream didn’t look at him and there was a weight in the slump of his shoulders Tommy had never seen before. “You don’t want to know.” 

_Maybe I do,_ Tommy thought, but he kept it to himself.


	2. Two

“Can we talk about something?” Tommy felt stupid asking, but he was longing for a distraction. His stomach hurt so bad he wanted to cry, and there was literally nothing else he could do.

“About what?” Dream asked absent-mindedly. 

“I don’t know. Anything.” Tommy stared up at the obsidian ceiling from where he was lying on the cold ground. “Where would you be right now, if you had the choice?”

Dream answered so quickly Tommy wondered if he’d thought about it before. “At the community house with George and Sapnap.” A pause, then: “What about you?”

Tommy said nothing.

Dream sat up to look at him. “Come on, Tommy. I can’t hold a conversation with myself. I answered, you could at least do the same.”

“I’d be with Tubbo in Snowchester,” Tommy finally said. “Making sure he doesn’t accidentally nuke himself.”

If Dream was surprised by any of what Tommy said, he didn’t show it. “So Tubbo has nuclear weapons now?”

Tommy nodded. “As deterrents. We’re sick of having our homes destroyed, so if Techno starts bitching about governments again—” Tommy gestured. “Tubbo and Jack plug in their keycards, and boom.”

“Jack?” Dream said in confusion. “Jack Manifold?”

Tommy nodded, frowning. “Why?”

Dream gave him a look of utter disbelief. “You’re trusting Jack with  _ nukes?” _

“Well, he can’t detonate them without Tubbo, but yeah. He’s helping me with my hotel, too. Why is this—”

Dream was already shaking his head with an unusual urgency. “You can’t trust Jack.”

“Why?” Tommy demanded.

“He came to visit me a few weeks ago,” Dream explained. “Asking about exile, about what I’d done to get inside your head. I think—I think he and Niki are trying to kill you.”

“What the fuck?” Tommy demanded. “You seriously think I’m gonna believe you when—” A jarring realization jolted in his chest as he remembered something. “ _ Shit.” _

Dream watched him carefully. “You believe me, right?” he pleaded.

“Yeah,” Tommy said breathlessly. “I think I do.” That day Niki had taken him out to the spruce forest and he’d almost been within the nuke’s blast radius—had Niki been trying to  _ kill him? _

“Oh my god,” Tommy whispered. “I have to warn Tubbo.” He leapt to his feet, turning back to the lava with increased desperation. “Sam!” he screamed again. “Sam! Let me outta here!”

“Tommy, he’s not coming,” Dream snapped. “When will you get that?”

“I don’t fucking care!” Tommy spat. “I have to warn Tubbo—Sam!”

Dream shook his head and scoffed. He grabbed Tommy and dragged him backward, away from the lava. Tommy reacted without thinking, swinging his arm back and elbowing Dream in the stomach. Dream let go of him, but Tommy’s fury had already gotten to his head. Blinded by rage, he punched Dream again, and again, and Dream didn’t simply take the blow the third time. 

Dream’s strength might have been diminished by starvation, but his reflexes weren’t—one jab to the stomach, and Tommy doubled over gasping for air. Before he knew it, he was on the ground with his wrists pinned to the floor, Dream’s weight pinning him down so he couldn’t move.

“Are you done?” Dream asked, voice deadly calm as Tommy struggled against him. 

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Tommy swore, but his voice betrayed his desperation. When he couldn’t break free of Dream’s grip, he turned to pleading instead. “Let me go.”

Dream shook his head, his grip around Tommy’s wrists loosening just enough so it wouldn’t cause him pain. “Not until you admit this to yourself. Sam isn’t coming.”

“He’ll come,” Tommy snarled, but he knew it wasn’t true.

Dream waited.

Tommy’s voice broke as he stared up at the mask, only imagining how fragile he probably looked to Dream—pinned to the ground, helpless, and close to tears. “I’m telling you, he will! I have to warn Tubbo, or—”

“You can’t help Tubbo right now,” Dream told him, voice low. “You’ve called for help over and over, and nobody came—this won’t make a fucking difference.”

Tommy shut his eyes tightly, turning his head so he wouldn’t have to look at that god-forsaken mask.  _ Sam will come,  _ he promised to him.  _ Tubbo will be okay. Tubbo will be okay. Tubbo will be okay— _

He stopped struggling.

Dream didn’t get up. “Say it,” he urged. “Sam isn’t coming.”

“What if Tubbo gets hurt?” Tommy pleaded. “What if Jack kills Tubbo cause I wasn’t there to protect him—”

“Goddamn it, Tommy, you can’t do anything about that!” Dream lashed out. “When will you get it? You’re stuck in here just like I am.”

Tommy took a deep breath, steeling himself. “Sam will come.” It was the wrong thing to say, and he knew what happened next—it had happened several times before. He’d refused to give in to Dream, so he’d get hurt.

Tommy braced himself, fully expecting Dream to hit him, but it never happened. 

Dream shook his head in disappointment and let Tommy go. “This is going to break you, you know. The longer you cling to this, the worse it’ll be.”

“I don’t care,” Tommy said bravely, sitting up. “I’m not giving up on Sam.”

“Sam doesn’t care enough to come and get you,” Dream said harshly, sitting down across from Tommy. “He knows everything about what happened in exile, he probably heard you screaming earlier—it doesn’t matter to him. The prison’s protocols come first.”

“Then Sam Nook will come.”

“Sam’s little animatronic? You really think he’s gonna let it in?”

“Forget it,” Tommy muttered, hugging his arms to himself. He curled up against the wall, staring at the lava.

Dream didn’t say anything for several seconds. Wordlessly, he sat down beside Tommy. “Tubbo will be fine, you know. He can take care of himself.”

“I should’ve known,” Tommy mumbled to himself. It all made sense now, why Jack was acting the way he was. Why he’d been so willing to work in the hotel, which Niki had acted so strangely, why’d they insisted on helping him at every turn. They were trying to kill him.

“Do you know why?” he said out loud.

“What? Why Jack wants to kill you?”

Tommy nodded, feeling empty. 

“I can guess.”

“Don’t bother.”

Dream looked at him, but Tommy still couldn’t see the expression on his face. “It’s not your fault, you know.” Dream laughed dryly. “It’s probably mine, in one way or another.”

Tommy didn’t move. “You’ve really fucked my life up, haven’t you?” he said bitterly. “I can’t sleep anymore, everyone blames me for the server’s problems, I’m stuck in here with  _ you— _ why do I bother with it?” __

Dream’s voice quieted, knowing what Tommy was implying. “You can’t help Tubbo if you’re dead.”

“I haven’t helped him by living, either,” Tommy snapped. “You know what would be different if I hadn’t jumped into the lava months ago? You know what would be  _ better?  _ L’Manberg would still be here, Tubbo wouldn’t have almost died, and a lot of people would be happier for it.”

“Tubbo wouldn’t be,” Dream told him. “Sam, Phil, Puffy,  _ me— _ ”

Tommy scoffed, but he didn’t argue. God, he was so tired—he wanted to curl up in his bed at home and sleep, but there was nothing here but obsidian and glaring lights and the walls pressing down around him— 

He’d die here, wouldn’t he? Dream would kill him, the obsidian would crumple and crush him, the lava would seep in and he’d burn to death. Everything here was designed to kill him—the thought of even making it to evening seemed impossible, and Tommy had only been here one night.

Dream rested his hand on Tommy’s, and only then did he realize he’d been digging his nails into the skin of his arm. “Let’s do something else to pass the time,” he suggested.

Tommy rubbed his eyes, wincing as he leaned his head against the stone. “Like what?”

“We have books and quills. We can think of something.”

Tommy hugged the hoodie Dream had given him against his chest. “What have you been doing? I know you burned all the books I had you write, but there are others.”

Dream shifted on his feet, wary. “I’ve been drawing a bit.”

Tommy looked up, a half-smile curling across his face. “Can I see?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You’ll throw it in the lava,” Dream said, his voice betraying his fear as he kept his hand firmly on the closed lid of his storage chest. “This isn’t my thank you notes, this is something I want to keep.”

“I won’t throw it in,” Tommy promised.

“You think I believe that?”

Tommy laughed dryly. “Now that I know it’s important, I could always wait until you’re asleep.”

“I’m serious,” Dream said, panic laced in his voice. “You can’t burn this.” 

Tommy sighed, turning away and lying down again. “Fine, then.” He closed his eyes, but Dream walked right up to him and dug his knee into Tommy’s side so he couldn’t get up. “I’m serious,” Dream repeated, kind facade gone and voice deadly calm as he pressed his hand down on the side of Tommy’s face, preventing him from looking up. A hiss of protest slipped out of Tommy’s mouth as he pulled at Dream’s arm, only to find his wrists pinned against his chest.

“Listen to me,” Dream muttered into his ear, and Tommy went still. “I can make your life hell right now and nobody can come and help you. Burn the book, and by tomorrow, you’ll be begging me to let you jump in the lava.”

A cold, horrifying dread settled at the bottom of Tommy’s chest as he went silent. He knew Dream well enough to believe he would follow up on that threat. After all, Dream had already driven him into trying to kill himself before—Dream had just stopped him before he could.

“You sadistic bastard,” Tommy whispered. Dream hummed in agreement before letting him go, but Tommy only buried his head in his arms and curled up against the wall. He wouldn’t have burned the book anyway—he wasn’t Dream, for fuck’s sake—but the threat was a stark reminder that Tommy was entirely at his mercy. 

_ He can do whatever he wants to me and I can’t do anything to stop him,  _ Tommy realized, and the thought alone was enough to send him spiraling. He clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle a sob, trembling ever so slightly. He couldn’t cry now, not when Dream was right there and watching. But everything was becoming too much: the hunger, the terror, the obsidian pressing down around him, the lava ready to burn him to death, Dream always there waiting for him to screw up, waiting for a reason to make Tommy relive everything that had happened in exile— 

Tommy didn’t realize he was shaking until Dream put a hand on his shoulder, and he flinched so badly Dream pulled away. “I’m sorry,” Dream said gently. “I didn’t mean to send you into a panic.”

Tommy was caught between telling him to fuck off or apologizing, the latter of which a habit he hadn’t shaken since exile. Puffy had noticed it quickly, how Tommy broke down into a nervous string of “I’m sorry” every time someone he trusted got mad at him, and he’d thought he’d gotten rid of the instinct by now.

Tommy ended up saying nothing, even as Dream put his hand back on Tommy’s shoulder reassuringly. “I won’t hurt you, alright?” Dream promised him. “That was the wrong thing to do, I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” Tommy said, voice empty. He sat up slowly, head spinning a little. 

Dream held the book out to him. “You can look through it, if you want.”

Tommy shook his head and pushed Dream’s hand away.

Needless to say, he didn’t sleep much the second night. He only kept still for a few hours, listening to Dream’s steady breathing until he was sure Dream was asleep. Only then did he sit up and crawl carefully over to the storage chest, easing it open and lifting the book out as quietly as he could.

When Dream didn’t stir, Tommy closed the chest and inched closer to the light of the lava, sitting by the wall with his head cushioned by Dream’s jacket. Curiosity taking a hold of him, he flipped open to the first page.

Crude, hurried sketches filled up most of the page, uneven strokes dotted with ink stains and blots. By what Tommy could tell, Dream had been drawing places—he recognized the patterned walls of L’Manberg and his bench, but nothing else.

He kept flipping through.

Every page was clearer than the last, and soon, Tommy was startled by the accuracy of the things Dream had drawn. Little snippets of events and people caught his eye: George and Sapnap shooting each other at the community house, firework explosions raining down on the crowd at the Red Festival, the green energy of a totem of undying healing Techno from his execution—all of which were captured with a few clean strokes. Niki yelling up at Schlatt, Tubbo building the election podium, Wilbur’s face as he looked over L’Manberg with a stick of dynamite in his hands: all events Tommy hadn’t witnessed, but recognized nonetheless.

The drawings were beautiful. Tommy hated them with a passion.

_ Gone, destroyed, evil, dead— _ nothing remained the way it was. The community house was blown up, Techno had betrayed him, Niki was trying to kill him and Wilbur was  _ dead.  _ Tommy kept flipping through the book anyway, even when tears started welling up in his eyes. He was careful not to let any drip onto the page, and only when he had seen every drawing and put the book back in the storage chest did something odd occur to him.

There must have been hundreds of drawings, little doodles of places and almost everyone he knew. Tubbo, Wilbur, George, Sapnap, Techno, Phil,  _ everyone.  _ Even the quieter people like Connor and Callahan popped up among the dozens of filled pages, each with their own place.

Yet not a single drawing had been of Tommy.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note:
> 
> Hey guys! As I promised, I've started a discord server to discuss the Dream SMP in general, as well as other fics like this one and Darker Days. I might discuss some of my thought processes and writing advice on discord, as well as pre-release a few chapters, and I have plans to write an ARG.
> 
> Aaaand we have a roleplay-based SMP server!
> 
> Here's the link to the discord: https://discord.gg/HfHpzkhEjW 
> 
> I'd love to see you there!
> 
> -Amber


End file.
